4. Portland Trail Blazers (New Year’s Day)
Depending on the status of Damian Lillard by the time the Suns face the Portland Trail Blazers at home on New Year’s Day, the Pistons fixture may overtake this one. For now though, any chance to go up against one of the premiere guards in the league in Lillard is a reason to watch.
The Trail Blazers as currently constructed don’t look like much of a threat to the Suns and their hopes of finishing with a high seed out West, but they do represent a different kind of challenge in two ways. The first is that the two sides will have met already by this point, in an in-season tournament game.
Not that a budding rivalry is going to grow out of that contest, but this tournament is new for everybody, although it is unclear how the Suns are going to approach these games. If the Trail Blazers have won that game, and the Suns are out of that competition early, rightly or wrongly they are going to be made fun of.
Even though that trophy isn’t the reason owner Mat Ishbia has assembled this super team. This matchup will also be a fascinating insight into both the “Point-Booker” experiment, and also how both he and Beal guard one of the best scorers in the game in Lillard.
Booker vs Lillard in a duel would be great television, while we’ll get a chance to see what kind of appetite Beal has for chasing around opposing guards on a nightly basis. As an added bonus, it will be a chance to see how rookie Scoot Henderson does against one of the best teams in the league. This is a challenge he is likely to meet head on, and it will be fun to watch.